New York to sell prison superintendent house in Auburn: Cayuga Neighbors Today

View full sizeCourtesy of Sherry and Bill Gabak, 2009An aerial view of the Auburn Correctional Facility.

From the Associated Press:

The stately brick house at 67 South St., Auburn, once occupied by the superintendent of New York's oldest prison, will soon go on the block.

With eight bedrooms, six baths, an attached gazebo and a detached barn-size garage, the three-story house affiliated with Auburn Correctional Facility is appraised at $366,500. One of nearly a dozen now-vacant state-owned homes for prison wardens, it will be the first up for sale, with others expected to follow.

The Auburn house has extra curb appeal, standing four blocks away from its maximum-security prison, whereas some others have an immediate view of high walls, barred windows and razor wire.

"It was always well kept. It was actually kind of neat when you were a youngster seeing correctional facility employees, basically inmates, manicuring the lawn or shoveling snow," Mayor Michael Quill said Wednesday. "They never bothered us, but we were scared to death because they were inmates."

"One of the wardens had a daughter who raised horses, and there were horses in the backyard. It's a beautiful street in the city," said Quill, also Auburn's retired fire chief. "As they say, if only the walls could talk, I'm sure they'd tell some stories."

View full sizeCourtesy of Eileen McHugh View of the front yard of Auburn Correctional Facility, between the State Street wall and the front of the administration building circa 1910.

Auburn is the oldest existing state correctional facility, receiving its first inmates in 1817, and the scene of New York's first electrocution on Aug. 6, 1890. Warden Charles F. Durston signaled his assistants to throw the switch on William Kemmler, convicted of murdering his common-law wife. He had to be shocked a second time to ensure he was dead.

However, Durston didn't go home to the brick house that night. Built in the 1860s, it was owned by the prominent Woodruff and Dulles families before the state took it over in the early 1930s, city officials said.

New York has 60 state correctional facilities housing approximately 56,000 inmates, as well as 23 structures considered superintendents' residences, mainly throwbacks to an earlier time and affiliated with older prisons.

For example, Coxsackie Correctional, which initially opened in 1935 as a reformatory for juveniles, has a vacant superintendent's residence on the sprawling grounds. The large brick house fronted by evergreens stands between two staff residences occupied by correction officers.

Close proximity to a prison is considered a marketing challenge. No decision has been made yet about the Coxsackie house.

"We're going through a whole review of these assets in our possession," said Peter Cutler, spokesman for the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. "They're state assets we're trying to maintain until we best determine what to do with them."

The corrections department is reviewing all 841 residential units where staff, including superintendents, pay rent, and 695 are occupied, Cutler said. One of the largest is located at Stewart Air National Guard Base in the Hudson Valley. It is a close commuting distance to a half-dozen prisons for 163 employees, who stay there at least a few nights a week.

"It's a nomadic population of people who come from other parts of the state to perform their jobs," Cutler said. Now, 785 corrections and security staff and 49 administrators rent from DOCCS, with an influx following last year's closures of seven prisons, he said.

The Office of General Services plans to auction the Auburn house in June or July, OGS spokeswoman Heather Groll said. No minimum bid has been set yet, and there will probably be covenants to protect historic aspects of the property, she said.

The current corrections review follows a mandate from Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo to streamline for efficiency and effectiveness, Cutler said. The second superintendent's house likely to go up for sale is at Altona Correctional Facility in northern New York, now listed as vacant and shut down, located across the street from the medium-security prison.

Five superintendents' residences are occupied by superintendents at biweekly rental rates ranging from $326.38 at Mohawk prison to $593.20 at Fishkill. Five others are rented by other prison staff. One serves as a day care center and another is a business office.